Nini's alarm startled her out of a deep sleep at seven. She groaned, rolled over, and turned it off. Rubbing her eyes, she glanced at her phone. A text from Ricky said that he was headed into school early but that he'd see her again tonight. Nini smiled to herself, with things better between them, she finally felt like she could breathe again. She sent him a quick message to let him know that she could talk after school whenever he was free since she had no practice tonight. Then Nini dragged herself out of bed.
She quickly braided her hair and dressed in her favorite mint sweater and jeans. Nini could barely be bothered to put on makeup, but she figured a smear of concealer and a bit of mascara never hurt anybody. She made a quick trip to the bathroom, and collected her books, then left her room to go meet the girls in the dining hall.
For the first time in a long time, or maybe ever, Nini felt like she could see how beautiful the campus here really was. She could appreciate the way the sunshine made the Colorado snow glitter. She could enjoy the soft click of her flats on the marble floors of the main hall. She felt at peace with who and where she was.
"Well you seem like you're in an awfully good mood this morning," Faith said as Nini sat down to join them with her breakfast.
"I am in a good mood," she confirmed. "Ricky and I finally talked last night, and I don't have rehearsals tonight, and it's Friday," Nini said while stirring her oatmeal.
"Well, happy looks great on you," Gwen said with a sweet smile. It occurred to Nini that this is where a backhanded compliment usually would come. "Where's Layla?" She asked.
"Take one guess," Faith deadpanned. She and Nini shared a conspiratorial grin.
"Is she at yet another early morning rehearsal for her extremely groundbreaking portrayal of Rizz?" Nini joked.
"Ding ding! Not just a pretty face, folks! Nina's also sharp as a tack" Faith replied, Nini and Gwen both cringed at how loud she said it. The girls all laughed, enjoying each other's company, and all too soon it was time to head to their first class.
---
Nini was always astounded by the way that days could simultaneously fly by and drag their feet, and today was no exception. She and Gwen gathered their books from their last class, and headed out the door together, walking together to meet up with Faith so that they could head to dinner before their rehearsal, while Nini got the night off. "So, now that you and Ricky are back on solid ground, are you two gonna catch up during normal people hours?" Gwen asked while they walked.
Nini had confided in her a bit of the drama that had been unfolding in her life as of late, and particularly last night. She blushed at Gwen's question. "Yeah, we're gonna FaceTime as soon as he gets home from school," she said.
"But you're still in for coming over to my room for a movie night, right?" Gwen said.
"Oh my gosh, yeah! It's been way too long since I watched Mama Mia!" Once they found Faith, the three girls stepped outside, into the cool afternoon air. And that's when Nini's heart froze in her chest. Everything froze, really. It didn't matter that they were turned around, she would recognize those curls anywhere.
Nini vaguely heard the girls asking her what was wrong when she stopped walking. "Ricky," she said, although it was barely more than a whisper.
"What?" Both girls said in unison. Tears began to cloud Nini's eyes, "Ricky?" she shouted.
This time he heard her and turned around with the most radiant smile Nini had ever seen on him. Somewhere, she registered that she must look insane, but she couldn't really be bothered to care. Nini took off, running down the steps and walkway, he did the same, trying to reach her as quickly as possible. "Ricky!" she cried again as she finally reached him. She threw herself into his embrace and he caught her, just like always. "Is this real? Am I dreaming?" she said, crying and burying her fingers in his curls. "Ya know what, I don't even care if it's a dream. It's the best dream ever and I hope I never wake up."
"Not a dream Nins. Very much real," he sighed, while one arm stayed firmly wrapped around her, his other hand came up to caress her head against his neck. "I just had to see you. I know you've got a thousand things to do, but I just had to come. I promise I won't get in the way."
She choked on a laugh, "You get in the way? No. Never. Not possible" she whispered to him. Finally, she pulled back enough to actually see him. Ricky. Her Ricky. And, god, he looked terrible. But even crying and sleep-deprived he was the best thing she'd seen in months. Her heart leaped into her throat as her eyes flickered around his face, trying to soak him in. Finally, she lost the will to restrain herself, and she kissed her beautiful boy with every ounce of love and affection she felt for him. He kissed her back with equal intensity, but both of them pulled back all too quickly, realizing that they were very much in a public space.
Resting her forehead against Ricky's she beamed at him and giggled. She felt like a soda bottle, shaken up until it burst. "Ehem," Nini heard her friends theatrically clearing their throat behind her. After taking just one more moment to soak this moment, she disentangled herself from Ricky's grasp, his arm still hung loosely around her as she turned to face Faith and Gwen.
"So..." Nini said, face burning. "This is Ricky." She gestured towards him.
"Yeah." Faith deadpanned, "I would certainly hope so." All of them laughed as the tension eased out of the situation.
"It's so nice to meet you both, I've been dying to meet Nini's friends," Ricky said quickly introducing himself to the other girls, who both gave Nini devilish grins.
"Oh, so we're Nini's friends?" Gwen said with a wink, "All this time I thought I was friends with Nina, but apparently, my life has been a lie," she laughed.
They all moved to head inside, and Nini gently twined her pinky around Ricky's and she felt him look down at her. She didn't even need to look back at him to know exactly what kind of smile was consuming his face right now.
---
It didn't take long, but it certainly felt like a small eternity, to get back to Nini's room. As soon as her door was closed and locked behind her, Nini's heart rate picked up again. She turned back around to Ricky, who was looking around her small dorm room with a soft expression, before turning back to meet her eyes.
Nini's heart melted just looking at him. She dumped her book bag and coat on the floor, and quickly made her way over to Ricky, pulling him in by his jacket for a kiss. Nini felt some sense of desperation to be close to him. To prove to herself that he was real. She pushed his jacket off of his shoulders, and he helped in taking it off to drop it on the floor. Nini knew that he wouldn't be the one to take steps forward, this was somewhat uncharted territory for them. There would be no one coming in here to interrupt them, and there was nowhere else that either of them needed to be, and god she had missed him so much.
Nini sat on the edge of her bed, then, sliding back, pulled Ricky with her. Laying back, Nini ran her fingers through his curls, while he held himself above her, kissing softly down her neck. Nini was so content, she could still hardly believe that this was real. She just wanted to hold him closer and tighter and never let him go again.
"Nini?" Ricky asked, his voice and face were the definition of worry.
"What?" she asked startled. He gave her a soft look, before bringing one hand to brush her cheeks.
"Love, you're crying," He said gently.
Nini had to laugh, she truly hadn't even noticed. "I guess you're right," she said feeling almost hysterical.
"You okay?" Ricky asked, clearly trying not to laugh at her in her confused state of emotions.
"Yeah," she said. "I'm just so glad you're here. I hate it when you're not here. Everything is so much better when I've got you." Nini let her hands roam while she spoke, her thumb ran gently over the shell of his ear, in a familiar and fond gesture. Nini could see him melting. She loved how well she knew everything about her favorite person.
She softly pressed his chest so that he'd lay down beside her, then Nini wrapped herself against his side. His arms came around her, pulling her close in his embrace. "I love you so much Nins."
Nini sighed contentedly, "I love you too, Ricky." She kissed the space of his chest closest to her and heard his soft breath and heartbeat so close and steady and real. "I want all of the details, obviously," she said. "But right now can we just take a good, long, nap? Cause that's what I really need right now."
"This," Ricky said, "is why we work." she laughed, glancing up to see his eyes already closed and his expression softening. She let her own eyes drift shut too, and allowed herself to succumb to sleep.
---
When Nini woke up she had a moment of intense confusion. Who was in her bed? How did she get here? What time was it? She could barely wake her mind up enough to fully grasp these questions. When she finally did wake up enough to remember, Nini's eyes sprung open to see the most beautiful and heartwarming sight before her.
Ricky looked so peaceful sleeping tangled up with her. Part of her wanted to just watch him sleep forever, but she still had so many questions about how he ended up here. Nini smiled at him warmly, she reached up a gentle hand to brush back the curls that had disheveled in his sleep. Ricky sighed and turned his head in response, slowly blinking his eyes and waking up. As soon as their eyes met, Nini saw a light brighten in him. She felt like she was glowing too.
"I can't believe you're here," she whispered.
"I can't believe I'm here either," Ricky said softly. They both chuckled as Ricky leaned over to press a kiss to her forehead. Nini let her eyes drift shut and just enjoyed the feeling of being so close to him again.
"Seriously though," she said. "How are you here? Do our parents know? Do our friends know? When did you decide to come? I'm so confused."
"Okay, so on the phone last night, or I guess really it was this morning," he laughed. "I laid there while you fell asleep and I just knew I had to see you. So, I set an alarm for five, sent a text to Red to tell him what was up and I asked him to apologize to Miss Jenn for me. I had a quick talk with my dad, who said I can never let my mom find out that he let me do this, but he actually gave me his car to drive. I didn't tell your moms cause I figured I'd leave that decision up to you. Ten hours of driving later, here I am!" Ricky said all of this as if it were really that simple and obvious.
"You're crazy Wildcat," Nini said, quoting Gabriella. "But still not sure that I totally get why you decided to cut class and deprive yourself of sleep."
"You said that there was a lot going on. Hard conversations are usually best had in person, plus it was tearing me apart inside to watch you cry and not be here to hold you," he told her gently. Nini felt so lucky to love and be loved by him.
"I don't know what I ever did to deserve you, but I must have done something right. In some lifetime anyway." Nini meant it as a joke, but she could see that Ricky took it closer to heart.
"Nini, you do so much right every day. You've got to start seeing that," he said.
Nini squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath and, without thinking about it too much, she let her grievances begin to pour out. "So, they do this thing here called traditional casting, meaning not color blind. Meaning that I was never going to get a speaking part in Grease because I'm not white and all of the characters in the show are. That's not to say that I would have for sure had a part if things were different, but I literally never even had a chance no matter what I did. I didn't want to tell you any of you guys because I already feel so bad for leaving you behind but the fact that their discriminating here just makes it one hundred percent worse."
Nini, finally peeked up at Ricky as she stopped talking. He was staring down at her and from his expression, she could tell that he was fairly speechless. "And I started shutting you out because I found out from Seb and Big Red that you were keeping things from me. About your mom and Chicago? About how hard it really was for you when I left? And I didn't feel like I could trust you to be honest about anything if you couldn't even be honest with me about what was going on in your own life."
"So," Ricky said, "That definitely didn't help with you already worrying about my relationship with Gina. Makes perfect sense." He sighed, giving her an apologetic look. "I just didn't want to make you feel guilty for chasing your dreams. I didn't want to be 'that guy' who is too selfish to let you be your own person. And I didn't tell you about my mom cause there was nothing to discuss. I am not about to move to Chicago and I didn't want to give you anything extra to worry about."
Nini nodded along. It was all so perfectly understandable she could almost laugh about it. They really did need to get better at the whole communication thing. "From now on, Ricky, you don't need to protect me and I'm not going to hold back to try and protect you. We both need to learn to share our burdens, cause when things get tough there's no one who makes me feel better than you."
"Yeah," Ricky said. "You're right. Red's great. I love our friends. But I am so in love with you. There's no one I'd rather talk to about everything." Nini strained to kiss his cheek, feeling her whole word slide back into place as they spoke. "So, what are we gonna do about this school?" He asked.
"I don't know," Nini sighed. "I never should have left EHS."
Ricky shook his head, with intensity in his eyes he spoke, "No, no, Nins. You made the right choice to leave. To trust yourself and believe in yourself. This just wasn't the right place for you. So, how can I make the rest of the semester here a little more bearable?"
"Honestly, just knowing that I can talk to you about being miserable here makes it easier."
"Yikes," he teased. "We're really setting that bar low, aren't we? I mean, if all you need someone to talk to I can be that, but really if you need more, all you have to do is ask. I can try to start visiting more often."
She smiled at him and nodded. "I love you," Nini said. "And my moms love you too, but you know they're not about to love that you're here without them even knowing about it. I mean, you're sleeping in here tonight. Can you stay for the whole weekend?"
"I was hoping to leave Sunday morning," he chuckled.
"Okay, yeah so you're about to spend two unsupervised nights in my bedroom, which, by the way, is super not allowed seeing as this is the all-girls dorm," she gave him a theatrically nervous look. "So we're gonna have to keep you kind of hidden in here."
"Alternatively," Ricky said. "We could go out of our way to get caught and then with any luck you'd get expelled and the problems would be solved for us!"
Nini laughed, "Yeah and then with any luck my mothers would let me see you again by the time we're thirty."
"Once we're eighteen, we're adults baby. They can't keep us apart, I'm willing to risk a year without you if it'll save you from this misery."
Nini smiled, shaking her head at him. "No," she sighed. "I've gotta stick it out here. I need to prove to myself that I can."
"Alright, then I'll support you in that." Ricky leaned down to kiss her properly and Nini melted against him. She felt like all of the anxieties that she'd been carrying around with her were finally letting up just a bit. Having Ricky to help carry the load of it all was the greatest gift he'd ever given her. Her hand fisted in his shirt pulling him closer and just as he began to deepen their kiss his stomach let out an obnoxiously loud growl. Both of them pulled away from each other laughing hysterically.
"Wow, my own stomach turned against me," he said with mock annoyance. Making Nini laugh even harder.
"Alright, well we should probably go take care of that and get your bag from your car anyway," she said with a wink.
---
They ended up going to a diner that was within walking distance of campus, and by the time they made it back to Nini's dorm, both of them were thoroughly stuffed and ready to go to sleep.
Nini returned to her room, having showered, brushed her teeth, and changed into her pajamas. She shut her door and locked it, before turning around. Nini could hardly keep a straight face at the sight of Ricky in pajama pants and a t-shirt sitting against the headboard of her bed on his phone.
He looked up to see the odd expression on her face, "What's going on in that head of yours, beautiful?" Nini blushed a little bit, making her way further into the room to put her clothes in her hamper.
"Nothing, I just was thinking how very domestic this is," she paused. "And I was sort of thinking that I'm weirdly nervous."
Worry clouded over Ricky, "Nervous? Nini I-"
Nini cut him off before he could get too far down the rabbit hole of his thoughts, "Relax, you're okay. I'm fine. I just- things are kind of changing between us and I like where they're going, but they also make me a little anxious." Nini was almost embarrassed by how hard it was for her to have this conversation with the boy that she loved, who also happened to be a boy she'd known pretty much her whole life.
"Got it," Ricky said gently. He reached out his arms towards her and she eagerly crawled up on the bed to embrace him. "Nins, we're not doing anything until you can tell me with complete certainty and confidence that you're ready. We have all the time in the world. There's no rush, I'll be here."
Nini sighed, contented "I love knowing that." Quickly pulled away to shut off the lamp beside her bed and the room fell into darkness. She laid back down and melted against him. "Best. Day. Ever." she whispered.
"Couldn't agree more," Ricky said, kissing the top of her head.
notes
So this was originally supposed to be two chapters, but I just love rini, so I had to lol. I had a lot of fun with this chapter. It was so nice to get to some happier content after all of the angst! If there's anything you're dying to see in this story let me know, and there's a chance it'll make it in. I have the general plot mapped out, but I'm still open to suggestions. As always, thank you for reading and let me know what you think!